Would you rather: Get a coffee on the house or your 10th coffee free!
Think about how you feel when you finally complete a loyalty punch card. As the cashier hands you your free coffee, you feel a sense of accomplishment, maybe even a bit of pride! You earned that coffee!
Now the question is, as a restaurant, is that how you want your guest to feel?
Say we rewind and instead of setting the expectation that their eleventh coffee is free, we comp it. The surprise coffee is then an unexpected but delightful gift that makes the guest feel special. We turned a transaction into an opportunity to build a relationship.
Loyalty isn’t one size fits all
When we think of a loyalty program, what often comes to mind is punch cards and points. For quick service restaurants, this makes a lot of sense since the average check size is low and the goal is to increase frequency and more importantly, collect guest data.
However, for full-service restaurants, beyond a great product, guests become regulars because they want to get to know the people behind their favorite spots. General managers, captains, and servers play a key role in shaping the dining experience. Instead of cookie-cutter freebies or discounts that may cheapen the brand, full-service restaurants should focus on fostering an authentic relationship with their guests that gets them to come back.
Looking into Hermes: A Relationship-Based Loyalty Approach
Consider, for example, the fashion brand Hermes, a business where the top 5% of their customers contribute to almost 40% of their sales. Although they don't offer a public facing loyalty program (no rewards or buy one get one free coupons), their business has a huge emphasis on their repeat guests (So much so that they commit roughly 24% of their annual budget to loyalty!) At Hermes, loyal customers are surprised with unique access to coveted handbags and other items on their “wish list" (like the famous Birkin bag) based on the relationship they build with the brand, which in turn creates value for the business.
A New Era for Loyalty
For any business, your loyal guests are your brand advocates – they post photos about your restaurant on social media, regularly bring new people in, and engage with events and other product offerings. Ultimately, true loyalty is about creating an emotional connection with the guest. So how can we enable our most loyal guests to feel like they know a guy?
At Loyalist, we’re working on enabling operators with the technology to build relationships with their guests at scale. We believe in a world where restaurant owners are empowered to create more delightful and human experiences, a world where we walk into our favorite neighborhood restaurant and are greeted with a warm “Welcome Back.”
If your hospitality group is looking to supercharge your data, we’d love to chat.
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Maggie Tang